iConclude
by WhiteKnightro
Summary: To All Things There is an End. iCarly ends in November 2012. "He was smart, sheltered from crossing without the lights, in desperate need of someone to show him the other side of the street. She was a criminal, an agent of chaos. She needed someone who would accept her as she was."
1. After Happily Ever After

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. That's a fact. Here's another, iCarly shot its final episode in June. Dan, thanks for letting so many of us play with your stuff. It's been great.**

**Speaking of great, hop over to Fictionpress and check out the narrative, "The Enemy Within" by Moviepal, it's powerful and has the added benefit of being true.**

**My thanks to Julefor for reading an earlier draft of this and giving me some feedback.**

**This story takes place in the future and is only concerned with Seddie. The other characters on the show are just filler to me. They always have been. That's not a shot at the creators, actors or fans involved with those characters. This is just the story I want to tell. I think this is real, more real than the show could offer considering its intentions. Like all the stories I've written in this fandom this is one I had to tell. **

**iConclude**

**Chapter I: After Happily Ever After **

"**How can I tell you about my loved one?"-Paul McCartney**

"Sam?" Freddie said. His hand reached out to touch her soft cheek. The white hair on her forehead was perfectly groomed, silken. He noticed his hand had a tremor. There were dark spots on the waxy, vaguely brown flesh and wiry hairs curled up above the knuckles. The nail on his right thumb was damaged working on a circuit board years ago. His mother would have made him go to the hospital; possibly consult a specialist at the Mayo clinic. Sam had urged him to "wrap a towel on it" and get to the store, she wanted to barbecue. So, he wrapped on towel on it. It had never healed right. That was, how long ago was that?

"Sam?" he said again, "get up princess, we have to go," his hand trailed on her cool face. That beautiful face. Her eyes were closed but their luminous blue lived in him and he could see them anytime he closed his own.

"Dad?" said the voice behind him. "C'mon, let's sit down." Strong hands were on Freddie's shoulders gently pulling him away from the coffin.

Wayne, their oldest, looked exactly like her, blond hair, blue eyes, and he had her freakish physical strength along with the appetite of some fictional character that never stopped eating but never put on a pound.

"Wayne, this is not how it works," Freddie said, his tone suggesting that a column of numbers would not produce the correct sum, his hand continued to shake as he enumerated his points, "She is a married female whose natural mother lived a long time-and I never understood how when you consider the choices Pam made-statistically your mother should have out-lived me," and Freddie Benson shook his white head in disbelief. He heard his own mother in his voice.

"I know dad, sometimes it isn't about the facts." His son guided Freddie back to the chairs in front.

Sitting, Freddie looked around at the big room with its cream hues and understated yellows and blond woods. The lights were low and gave the space a dusky shade. Ahead was a sea of plants and flowers that enveloped the silver-grey casket. Sam really wasn't a flowers person. But surrounding the body in smoked meat was probably out of the question. He smiled at the thought of it. It was the first time he had smiled since she spoke to him at the hospice.

The hospice room was comfortable, decorated in soothing colors, the cold, plastic hospital tubes and hard machines cleverly, subtly designed into the space. It didn't have the hospital smell that he grew up with, the odor of cleaners and rubbing alcohol and antiseptic ointments. She was sitting up in the bed, "Sam, why don't you want to be home for this?" he asked her.

"Are you nuts? That's where you live. You really want my moldy ghost in the house with The Next Generation? You are such a nub, Benson," her voice was hoarse. She touched his face weakly. "You'll be here, right?" she asked. It was as close to saying she was afraid as she would ever get.

"Sam, I'll be here until…" the words would not come out of his mouth.

"Just checking, I know they're rereleasing _Galaxy Wars_ I'm sure you and Parker will be in line with New Sam and Evan."

"Well, we'll draw straws. Loser stays here," he said with his smirk and squeezed her newly frail hand, the large blue veins like worms.

"That's mean," she said. She was trying to smile but the medications she was on seemed to reduce her Sam-ness.

"Makes you proud, does it?" he said.

"Yep."

"I learned from the best," then, after a moment he added in a voice he rarely used, a timbre that took charge. "Sam, you are coming home, that's all there is to it."

"Okay," her surrender thrilled and horrified him. Sam was coming home. Sam had no fight in her. The memory made him wince as if stabbed with some sharp object.

"Grampa?" The hospice was gone, Evan, the oldest grandson, Evan who loved to dance and shake his butt when brushing his teeth, Evan who was already Freddie's height pressed into him. There was a tall gene somewhere in the Benson-Puckett biology. His mom, Pam Puckett, both were tall. Freddie coiled his arm around the waist of the teen and drew him in. Freddie felt the boy's tears on his own neck. Why couldn't Freddie cry? He loved Sam. Evan loved Sam.

Everyone loved Sam. Everyone here, anyway, the large room was crowded with people even though its walls had been retracted to allow maximum occupancy. The entire facility was dedicated to this funeral event. He saw lots of faces he did not know at all, a strange mix of ethnicities and incomes, it was eclectic, like one of those restaurants that had video screens hanging next to old Peppy cola signs from the '30s. When she was young, a tomboy thug, she never would have suspected this kind of turn out. Oh the changes time had wrought. But who thinks about being old when they are seventeen?

As she aged, she matured, like old wine. Sam Puckett was an embodiment of some life process. She filled out her time on Earth growing into new spaces that enriched her and that she improved with her presence. She had truly lived that cliché "the full life."

He was so proud of her. How he loved to see her succeed, how he enjoyed watching her pick herself up after a failure and grow taller and stronger for it. She was his hero in so many ways. He did not understand back then, but she inspired him, pushed him, made him grow. To him the greatest mystery was why she chose him. Did she choose him? He had not chosen her. He started out wanting Carly.

Carly was here today of course, the secret service agents stood silently, oddly invisible in the back corners of the room. Had anyone ever assassinated a vice-president let alone a former one? Carly approached him and he stood, the lifelong friends embraced. She was still thin as a delinquent's excuse, and her hair was unnaturally dark for her age. She had a powerful perfume on and her suit was perfectly, expensively fitted.

"Oh Freddie, why?" she sobbed and shuddered. The two gripped each other like life preservers.

"I guess it was time," Freddie said, but he didn't know why. It was just something to say when people die, where was his brain? Why was his thinking so jumbled? He was sure he had a plan but suddenly it had no shape. His brain was in the same place as his missing tears, "Bill with the girls?" Freddie asked. It was small talk, he didn't care, Bill was another in the long line of Carly's bad choices in men a habit she never got free of.

Carly whispered into his shoulder, "our girls or somebody's."

Freddie nodded and squeezed her tightly. He could not focus on Carly's latest domestic misadventure. When they were younger Freddie, Carly and Sam were the iCarly trio, the brain, the heart and the muscle. Although they had remained friends time had changed them as it did with everything. Time was a river, pushing everyone along. At one distant point Freddie thought he loved Carly Shay. It took a blonde demon and years of living with her, fighting with her, to show him what love really was. Freddie thanked God silently for all the times God told him "no" when he prayed for Carly's affection.

As he had aged, as Sam got sick, he thought much more about God than in his youth.

Carly separated from him and slipped into a row of chairs. The agents in the room adjusted ever so slightly to accommodate their mission. As he watched her sit, he realized time was more than a river, time was hard on people. It beat them up. The old people in the room, people like him, looked like they had been in a very rough fight. Time was an unbeatable opponent.

When they were young he and Sam were "frenemies" friends who behaved like enemies at times. She abused him mercilessly, tricking him, insulting him, hitting him. People who saw them together then understood they had a chemistry an explosive reaction that could consume them or propel them to the stars.

He started as a nerd, a "nub" in her words. He was smart, sheltered from crossing without the lights, in desperate need of someone to show him the other side of the street. She was a criminal, a shop lifter, a truant, a rebel, a risk taker, an agent of chaos. She needed someone who would accept her as she was. They appeared to be opposites, but that wasn't true. They needed each other. They became a team, a binary. Separate they were both capable. Together, they were a force that built the lives they had lived until this very moment, and the clear conclusion of that team was evident now in the front of the room. The image made him shudder. Would he have accomplished all he had without her egging him, insulting him, driving him? Would she have achieved everything had he not counseled her, calmed her, acted as a rudder in the wild currents of her life?

By the time she had gotten sick Sam was a very successful woman, owner of her own string of coffee-deli shops (Sam's) star of her own Internet cooking show (Samisfaction) and periodic star in the mini-fiction videos that became his passion. She was a celebrity yes, but the folks who were paying respects today weren't just fans. There were other, sometimes more famous people, past and present employees, competitors, customers, strangers Sam had helped, people whose lives she had touched.

That pleased him. Sam's effect on people was an unusual thing to watch evolve. She didn't do normal human interaction. She could be hard to get close to. She irritated and pushed people; she made trouble and stirred things up. His Sam had a very relaxed attitude about things that most people thought needed discipline. It was like the old iCarly show. She barely showed for rehearsals but at go-time creativity just boiled out of her. He thought of that face in his viewfinder and his chest surged with something sharp that made him blink.

He and Sam were good partners. She saw possibilities and he organized, refined, produced and directed them. "I'm the creative one," she would tell him. "You're just a brain, get me some ham." The remembered words, the almost audible sound of her voice made him both happy and profoundly sad all at once. They had grown old together. They had become the irritating old people she had always mocked in the iCarly days, when they first started their lifelong fighting.

One of their biggest battles occurred the night they got engaged. He had of course planned it like a military invasion and when he showed her the ring she had not picked out, in effect challenging her independence, the two went into a long conflagration. It ended with the ring going back and Sam picking out what she wanted. Another lesson learned. Yet even when he asked her with the ring she chose, her first response, "I guess," was sufficient to start another battle until he got the kind of yes he wanted to hear. Push and push back, striking a balance.

He looked around the crowded, broad mortuary. In addition to the sprawling floral arrangements that lined the halls and entryway of the funeral home there was a display set up of printed and digitized three dimensional photos that traced Sam's life. Her Splash Page timeline was in funeral mode on a big screen. The music was from her PearPod in shuffle play. Freddie wasn't surprised by the shredding guitars, but the soft violins of old pop music was unexpected. Some were tunes she might have heard growing up with her mom. Some music reminded him of long drives with her. She liked Lady Taco the singer. He did not. Sam would tease him, "I know you love Lady Taco, Fred-dick," and she would leer at him in her private way that was so dirty. He exhaled, Sam was improper even at her own funeral. And warmth spread up from his core.

He looked around at the mourners. A kind of family was present, some biological, some assigned by common interest. He was not used to death but he had dealt with it. His mother, Pam, T-Bo, Spencer, Fat Johnny, but this one was different. It should be deeper, harder, but so far his pain waited out of reach. Why wasn't he crying?

Melanie, Sam's identical twin sat in front with his boys their wives and some of the grandchildren. It was eerie to see her. He had to make himself not stare. He had never had to do that before. He missed Sam so much. He couldn't cry but the tears poured out of Mel, spilling down her face. She leaned into her daughter Andrea who rubbed her shoulder but did not weep. Sam and Andrea never got along. Freddie understood why, but that was ancient history. He rubbed the ham earring on his left lobe. Sam always trimmed his ears when they got too "shaggy," who would do that now? Why was he thinking of that?

Sam and Melanie got much closer over the years. Much like Sam and Freddie, the differences between the twins were overcome by the powerful similarities. He remembered Melanie's words on a long ago winter night where snow had paralyzed the city:

"Do you know how much Sam loves you?" Mel asked him.

He nodded there in the mortuary, the words still clear and strong. The numbness of his fingers that cold, lonely night suddenly real again.

Mel continued, "You guys broke up again but it won't last. I know her, I grew up with her, not like you did, I lived with her. Never doubt how much you mean to her. Whatever has happened, I can't believe it will ever be over between you two. You have an effect on her that no one else does."

He put the rest of that night out of his mind. Ancient history.

When he and Sam finally stopped breaking up (the picking at each other would never cease) and settled into the idea that they were supposed to be together they lived a life out of some fantasy romance, though probably not everyone's fantasy, that was for sure.

They continued to appear to battle, but even casual observers could not miss the charged connection between them. It was not unusual for the two of them to exchange loud words and then walk out hand-in-hand smiling and laughing, and woe to anyone who thought to join in the heated banter. Suggesting to either that the other was deficient caused the two to come together like Lego pieces in a construct of extraordinary strength. Belittle either to the other in any way and you had an enemy, and in Sam's case might produce an outright beating. Both were fiercely protective of the other.

Freddie sat down and watched a parade of people pass by the casket. He did not know a lot of them. Sam had so many people in her huge life. Freddie was just one routine in a very complicated program.

But maybe the most essential component in some way; sometimes he granted himself the luxury of thinking how important he was to her. He shook that off and refocused on the room around him.

The mourners were divided into specific, demographic clusters. There were professionals in suits, people from his Pear days and financiers of his films. Sam's current and former employees, fans of her work going back to the iCarly days. That simple show touched people and they continued to get letters, and texts, and followers on their accounts. How many thousands of followers did Sam have? Oddly the exact number eluded him. Numbers didn't usually do that.

Another was a group of people that might have been from Sam's old neighborhood. Men and women, girls and boys with weirdly colored streaks in their hair, older, heavy men and women with bad grooming and weak fashion choices that did not always cover tattooed flesh. Freddie examined the body art, counted stars, and shapes that might be dragons and even Bible verses. Not as much barbed wire as he would have thought, however.

And everybody was wearing computers. Some were cheap, disposable systems, others were expensive implants. It was a world he dreamt of as a boy, had helped build as a man. All around him the data streamed, invisible as the air. He saw many people reacting to the feeds from her Splash Page "Conclusion Entries" that were fashionable these days.

His own personal computers ("We've made computing personal" was the slogan wrapped around his most successful advances) were muted or the influx of texts, e-mails, and condolence messages would be numbing. Even from here he could see the Splash Page tickers enumerating incoming updates on her passing.

A thin, shaggy, grey man in cracked, creaking motorcycle leathers walked up to Freddie and extended his calloused hand.

"I'm Carl Guzman, Sam gave my kid Judy a break and helped her get out of juvie a while back," he looked over his shoulder back at the body. "She was all right."

Freddie stood and shook the strong, hand; Guzman smelled of gasoline and the road, "yes, she was one-of-kind. Thank you for coming," Freddie said.

"Hadda do it man," he said with a smoker's weathered voice then he walked on without a word. Freddie wasn't sure he would ever have met the Carl Guzmans of the world without Sam. Sam offered him the horizon and let him meet and like people outside his comfort zone.

Freddie didn't like everyone in the room, today, however. One distasteful figure was a writer that had been pursuing Sam and him for an interview. She was interested in doing a series of articles on early web personalities, a, what-impact-did-it-have piece. She had dug into Sam's past, some of the ugliness that lived under their worst split, the time of James Ryan. Freddie had done a lot of work to clean up that mess but things on the Internet lived deep, like earthworms and were impossible, like roaches, to eradicate. The woman stayed back, which was good. If she made a "can we talk sometime" overture it would be hard to contain Wayne. He had his mother's temper and far less of the lived experience that restrained hers.

The next person in the line of respect that had formed was a plain, heavy young woman with a red, swollen face. She wore new jeans and a clean white blouse, "Mrs. Benson, Sam, was…" she said and the tears fell out of her eyes in a way Freddie thought resembled rain on pavement. He should be crying like this stranger. He drew her in and held her as she shook. His Sam had become a magnificent woman, she grew into someone that found a place in the world and made a difference. He wondered who this woman was and how she knew Sam.

As if reading his mind she spoke, "My dad, he, he abandoned my mom and sisters, Sam, she, she brought us food, helped us pay the bills, got my mom some help…"

Freddie's eyes burned but no tears came, "Yeah, sounds like Sam," he said, sort of rocking with her. Sam did these things and never told him. He suddenly noticed the music that was whining from the wall speakers. He listened to the tune and the words were thoughtful. Sam was more about the rhythm than the meaning, more dance than contemplation, yet even now she surprised him, startled him with her choices. Why had this complex lady ever wanted to be with him?

"It hurts, Freddie," Sam said to him from the bed they had installed for her at the house.

"The nurse is coming with something," he told her. Her skin was dry and cold as he stroked it. How many times had his hands caressed her?

"If I go to sleep, will I wake back up?"

"I don't know," and his voice failed.

"Freddie?" she was fading. The pain seemed to be the only thing keeping her with him.

He had wanted to tell her to let go, that it was okay to leave, but he was selfish, he could not say those words.

"Fred?" What? the voice was wrong.

She was gone.

"Fred, that's not her, dude," Gibby said to him.

The death bed had vanished and Gibby was in front of him "Huh?" Freddie said.

Freddie was back in the warm, cramped mortuary. He looked into the face of his old friend. Despite the stoop to his shoulders Gibby was still far taller than Freddie and his once impish hair was long gone, replaced by a substantial spread of wrinkled, spotted scalp. What hair remained was short and grey. Gibby had never done the comb-over or used any of the baldness remedies on the market these days. Gibby said he didn't think baldness was something that needed to be cured. Like everyone, Gibby had been fighting time and losing. But in Gibby-style the outcome didn't seem to matter. Gibby defied convention.

"What'd you say, Gib?" Freddie said, squinting at him.

"That's not her, Sam I mean. She's not in the box. She's out here with all of us. With the people who knew her."

Freddie nodded. He heard the words but they didn't take root. He was numb, his sons were crying, his friends were crying, strangers were crying, but his tears weren't coming. His brain was thrashing like the platters on those old magnetic drives in his first computers. His mind was trying to organize and break down into component parts what was happening here.

His grief was just out of reach.

Sam was at the front of the room in a forest of plants and flowers, an assortment of visitors passing by.

Beautiful.

Still.

Gone.

And Freddie's brain could not quite grasp it.

**A/N Chapter two is called Homecoming. **

**This story has been kind of a toothache, it needed to come out. But I'm working on it in a very odd manner. As such, I may rewrite and change chapters after they post as I did with iWTF, my first fan fic. I keep reading this and seeing areas I missed, things I could do better. So, with this mini arc I will be changing things up. That is something I've tried to do with my iCarly fan fiction, to write in ways that keep me moving, changing. So, we'll see.**

**This story takes place in my Knightroverse and some of the events referenced here are covered in more detail in the other stories I've written. Yeah, I'm beatin' up Freddie again.**

**I know that I have to finish "iLove You So Now What?" and I appreciate those of you who continue to read it, favorite it and recommend it to others. That means a lot, thank you.**

**Chapter two of iConclude is underway.**


	2. Homecoming

**Thanks to all the lovely people who alerted, followed, favorited, fanned and farmed (man the new FF site has a lot of terms) this one. But extra credit and gold stars go to those who left a few words in payment: **

**Mike2101, Urias, Oceanmistsupporter, irishfan62, Pigwiz, Dwyn Arthur, Lackadaisical Pajamas, Moviepal, mizkntuhke, TheWrtInMe, jhuikmn08, afanoffanfic, MittRomney, Justin Bieber and Michael Phelps.**

**Recommended reading, kind of a fiction crawl, y'all: **

"**Ghost" by Archilochus. On Fanfiction. Way up there on my short list of favorites. **

"**A Visit From Grandpa" by DwynArthur. Posted on An Archive of our Own (Google it). **

"**The Last Mile" by Moviepal over on Fictionpress.**

"**The Apartment" by Pigwiz, also on Fanfiction. It's a light, palette cleanser of a tale and will dry the tears the others might create. **

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly. What have you made lately?**

**iConclude**

**Chapter II: Homecoming**

**And it comes to you how it all slips away  
Youth and beauty are gone one day  
No matter what you dream or feel or say  
It ends in dust and disarray-Bob Seger**

"Sam?" Freddie said. He stared, his laser corrected vision beginning to blur again due to his age. It looked like her face pressed up against the frosted, etched glass of the big double doors to their home.

Freddie and Parker, his youngest son, stood before the tall wood and clouded glass front doors. Both men were dressed in their best attire, but it had been a long day, they were rumpled and clearly starting to slump. Ties were undone, and expensive, unbuttoned, long coats shielded them from the cold front that was settling in.

It was cold outside; the recent rain lingered in tiny pools on the immaculate grounds of the immense house and darkened the pavement. Parker had driven up the large strip leading to the roundabout drive. The proximity scanners and biometric components recognized them and began the unlock sequence at the front gate as security modes changed.

"Dad?" Parker asked, "What'd you say?"

Freddie shook it off, "I thought I saw your mother's face in the door glass-you know, like she used to do."

"Yeah, I remember, as a kid it scared the chiz out of me."

"Really?" Freddie asked, "I never knew that."

Parker smiled, "Dad, you grew up being terrorized by mom, so those things never sunk in with you. Mom was incredible but I hated when she did the face-in-the-glass thing. It creeped me out."

"She thought it was funny," Freddie defended.

"Sometimes mom crossed the line, dad."

The idea that Sam could do something wrong was hardly foreign to Freddie, but he was surprised by the idea that even her children might have been put-off by her behavior. The list of abuses over the years faded into the horizon like some desert highway. How had she hurt him?

Boomba (battered by fruit)

The Sam tattoo

Name calling

Outting his kissing virgin status to the Internet

The time she pretended to be Melanie (that memory made him shiver)

The shock pen she dropped him with once (he still had a scar from when Carly had used it on him at Nora's)

So many slaps, punches, spankings and body slams that he felt like a retired pro wrestler.

Dumping him for an older man.

Again he shook his head to clear it. He had just left the funeral of his wife. He had heard her eulogized by friends and family. This was his reaction? To run a litany of the mean things she had done to him? Shameful. No wonder he couldn't cry. His priorities were all jumbled.

To Freddie's left a fountain made bubbly music. Sam had commissioned Spencer to build the water art years ago. For a Spencer it was oddly traditional and understated, composed of strong, black stone, the water rippling down three pooling platters of increasing size. Sam had liked the sound the water made. She said it calmed her. He remembered finding her out sleeping by it at the strangest times in positions that called to mind the victim of some attack. She was everywhere he looked and he hadn't even gone in the house yet.

"Dad, you shouldn't stay here alone tonight," Parker said. Freddie noted that he could see the mist of his son's breath. The house's maintenance programs would turn off the water to the fountain if the temperature continued to drop. Why was his mind on such details? Sam was gone. This wasn't like when she was mad at him and would storm away. There was no sweet reconciliation in his future, no cuddling on the sofa as they watched some show they loved. That part of his life was gone.

His wife was dead.

That was the first time those words landed and his brain didn't turn away.

Sam was dead.

"Dad? Did you hear me? You shouldn't stay here tonight."

Freddie looked at the brown haired man speaking to him. Handsome, smart, kind, a good father, he and Sam made two good boys, the pride was a physical sensation in the core of him and Freddie's time weathered frame seemed to enlarge slightly.

He smiled, "Why shouldn't I stay here? I was an only child, spent a lot of time by myself. I'm pretty good company."

Parker smiled, his aging father was very cute, and strangely fragile, "Dad, come back with me. The kids are having a hard time with mom's," he halted, "with this," he continued.

Freddie squeezed his youngest son's shoulder, and gave a head shake, he inhaled wetly through his nose, and the cold air stung him, "No, I need to be here tonight. This is home."

At their arrival on the front drive the residence went into a ready status. Thermostats clicked in, recessed fans and lights bloomed into life as they walked into the newly stirring big house. The first floor kitchen, Sam's least favorite of the three, was off to the left, the wall to the right was nine glass panels that spanned the full three stories of the structure and looked out over the deck that wrapped most of the building. Consuela had done her usual superlative job keeping the space neat and organized, the interior was immaculate, no traces of grandchildren or snacks, or grieving. It smelled of lemon furniture polish and floral air freshener. If there had been a hospital smell he would have suspected his mother's ghost had come by to tidy up. It felt wrong to Freddie. Where was the smell of smoked meat, of sauces and gravy, of bacon sizzling on the griddle? Sam's death took something from the air.

"Welcome home, Mr. Benson, and Parker," the house said to them. "Records suggest that Mrs. Benson is no longer active. Should I archive or delete her account and preferences?"

Parker winced as he helped the old man take off his coat, "Boy, glad Wayne didn't hear that, he'd unplug Leonard. Leonard, hibernate, house on manual," Parker said.

"Hibernating," the house responded.

Leonard was a program Freddie had developed. An interface that linked their phones, computers, cars home, offices wearable computers with the World Cloud, the concept had spread throughout the globe and it was the most lucrative code Freddie Benson had contributed to the world of commercial software. The residuals and dividends allowed him to take-up video directing full time and walk away from managing big code projects for his living. He was able to focus on things he loved. Family, films, video, he had actually almost finished with giving Leonard an argumentative component that would allow Sam and Wayne to insult (and be insulted) by the system when the final prognosis on Sam came back. That changed everyone's priorities.

"You want me to go get you something to eat?" Parker asked.

Freddie shook his head as he looked around the newly empty house, "Have you forgotten whose home this is…was?" The older man asked. "Food won't be an issue for some time, if ever." Under different circumstances they each might have chuckled.

"Dad, please come back with me, I don't, I just, I… I miss her dad, I miss her so much…" and the son who looked just like him began to cry. Freddie embraced him, clutching the trembling shoulders and the two shook together for a moment.

"S'cool," Freddie said softly. But his tears did not come. "What you said today, it was beautiful," Freddie told him. "She would have loved it."

"Yeah, but Wayne got all the laughs," he replied with a smile.

"He and your mom are the creative ones," Freddie said.

"We're just brains," Parker responded, as wet rivulets gathered in his eyes. Freddie squeezed in and kissed his son's cool, red cheek.

After a quiet moment, both men stepped apart and found themselves looking into the dying room. It was just like any room, a space given meaning by its contents. It was numbing in its implications. Calling it the dying room was Sam's cold joke since it had been the living room prior to her coming home for the last time. She had wanted to use a main floor bedroom but Freddie had insisted that this space was best for Sam to be with everyone. They would not relegate her to some closed-off space. She would be home and while she could she would receive visitors and spend time with her family. So the large, mildly sunken living room with its sweeping view across their property, giant hearth, ample access to power, network, audio visual and amenities was the ideal place for the orthopedic bed and the mission control equipment brought in to do whatever it was it did with its bings, blinks and white hum. It was one of the few times he did not want to understand technology, but he still made notes on how it could be quieter, more power efficient. It was how his mind worked.

The dying room contained Sam's last moments. Freddie preferred not to remember her final, ravaged look, her loveliness corrupted, breasts removed, teeth jumbled in her mouth, bones jutting, appearing to almost puncture her waxen flesh. She fought long and hard but in the final evaluation, life kills us all.

Even this image did not make him cry.

After some brief discussion and Parker promising to return with Wayne in the morning Freddie waved good bye to his youngest from the front step then turned back into the big house. It was almost like the structure swallowed him as he stepped inside. Sam and Freddie had bought it and the land when Freddie started making real money. When Sam started having substantial income from Sam's and catering they poured cash into the structure, knocking out walls, stitching on additions, making it into the home where they would raise the two boys. Six bedrooms, five baths, a kitchen on each of the three floors and a staggering amount of storage much of it food related.

Freddie made a face. He had a lot of food to unload. The grandchildren weren't over enough to eat it all and he certainly couldn't. He also had Sam's closets to clean out. They had put her substantial business affairs in order before she got too sick. He shook his head. His mind was doing what it always did: plan. But it didn't feel right. His thoughts weren't coming together the way he was used to. It was like something was trying to take over, like rough waters trying to overturn a boat.

He needed a project, some show to direct. Directing consumed all his bandwidth and would take his mind off the big, empty house and the big, empty space inside it now.

The big, empty space inside him, now. What was he supposed to do? He had planned for her departure, but not for her absence. He shook his head at the vast blankness she had left behind. It was like that old movie, the one where the characters stood in a sea of endless white screen until they imagined they needed something, like guns, and then endless rows of rifles filled the viewers' field of vision. Without Sam there was no content. She was everywhere, her touch, her preferences. When did Sam Puckett Benson become everything?

In a sudden burst of understanding he knew why sometimes when one member of a couple dies the other follows very soon. Either the survivor shuts down after, or concludes his own life because the loss of the partner was simply unbearable.

He nodded, he understood it, but he didn't see that happening to him. Sam had taught him about survival, about fighting. Sam had never walked from a fight, through her youth, through middle age and beyond, especially after the diagnosis, Sam fought. She bared her teeth and charged at the cancer, enduring chemo, radiation and the periodic removal of chunks of her. She bent into the fight even as she shrank, as her teeth got loose, as her precious food wouldn't stay down. Only her silken hair remained, (which perplexed them both, but he brushed it every night) through it all his Sam was the incredible opponent he had always respected and fallen in love with.

One night before the end Carly had visited. She fixed spaghetti tacos and her special lemonade. "It's special because we keep drinking it," Sam had quipped quietly to him. The recollection of her voice in his ear made him shiver. The tacos were at Spencer level in terms of quality, however. They could have beaten Ricky Flame easily. They looked on with horror as Sam squeeze bottled spicy mustard onto her taco, "What? I'm not dead yet!" she exclaimed. He remembered kissing her that night, the smell of the spicy mustard, its taste on her increasingly fragile, blistered lips.

He shuddered.

He was dying too of course. That was one message that he took from the last few weeks. There was no diagnosis, no doctor saying, "I'm so sorry," but it was still true. His time was coming to an end, also. Whatever account he was drawing on, it was getting much closer to empty. He felt it in the way his bones ached in the morning, at the struggle a flight of stairs could be and how much more he was going to the doctor to have things checked. It reminded him of that piece of chiz car Sam drove while they were engaged. It always needed some repair, some fix to keep it rolling. Finally, the breaks were so severe they had to have it hauled away. The next car was pre-owned and Sam had badgered the dealer into the sale. She was a fierce negotiator. She might have made a great trial lawyer if Freddie had done her homework and all her legal research.

He exhaled and the thoughts exited with his breath.

He went up the stairs past the special lift they had installed when Sam was just in treatment. He remembered her riding it up and down. Before they had adjusted it correctly the seat had a curious vibration and she claimed it was better than Freddie "down there." He smiled at the recollection of her sticking her tongue out at him as it took her up the stairs and how she cursed when he told Leonard to bring the chair back down, "Hobknocker geek, Benson," she playfully hissed, and they would have a mini-argument, then as they always did, at the conclusion of every skirmish or war, they would melt into each other.

He felt the trek up the stairs in his calves and his ankles made popping sounds. He walked the hall past the boys' old rooms, strategically at opposite ends to reduce their frequent and savage conflicts. He saw nicks and dents in the structure of the house caused by the two boys' battles. Wayne and Parker were the best things they had ever done together or separately for that matter, two healthy, loving children who grew to be honorable men who did the right thing. They were exhausting to deal with growing up, but now, those snapshot thoughts of Wayne lurking in closets to terrorize his brother, of Parker writing out crayon peace treaties that Wayne would break without hesitation were shining decorations of his life.

He passed the upstairs kitchen and listened to the air rumble through the ducts in the hall that led to the master bedroom. The walls were lined with digital, animated, slideshow pictures of everyone. Some went back to the web show days, some showed them at the beach, the trips to Dingoworld with the boys and later with the Next Gen as Sam called the grandchildren. Pictures of so many people, so many adventures, meeting the First Lady, going to Japan, various Webicons, space camp, that ass-hat boy band, Gibby's secret restaurant. There was a picture of Sam and Freddie at the Haunted Bed and Breakfast, at the Seattle Murder House where they went to hear that psychic on their famous "non-date."

He shivered at that remembrance as he often did, but couldn't fathom why.

She would never walk down the hall again. He would never see her walking toward him and feel that pleasure of knowing he was going to do something with her, take a walk, go for a drive, or watch a movie. And almost certainly argue about something. Making-up. Oh how he loved making up with his blond demon lover.

He stopped completely in the hall. Who was he going to fight with?

His old legs felt incredibly heavy, like stone towers. How on Earth was he going to live without her? He had never retired, but she was the engine for so much of their life together. She was always marching in, calling up, texting him with the phrase, "Put your pants on Fredbag, we're going (insert location or activity)."

The thought _Sam is dead_ ignited inside his head and seemed to burn there, searing red letters in the white bone of his skull. But his tears were missing, lost somewhere. Waiting for what? How much worse could he feel?

He continued his dirge march into the master bedroom. Freddie looked at the huge bed and its magnificent embroidered spread, at the art they had chosen for the room. As Sam matured she grew into her creativity, her taste and ability to express herself evolved and she became this beautiful bird whose insight and honesty inspired and improved him. He wondered yet again how they ended up together.

They each had walk-in closets and their own bathroom. He stepped into her closet, looked again at the assortment of clothes. This room had the smell of coffee and spices from all the work she did at her shops. He pressed his face into some of her favorite outfits but there was no smoky meat smell. She had purchased and worn factories worth of clothing over time. Still, there was nothing from their youth. No old tennies that she made Neville drink out of, no plaid shorts, no pageant outfits. There were a LOT of platform shoes. Virtually every piece of footwear in the room was designed to boost her height. There was still a gorgeous, shimmery gown she had worn to a Webbie Award show when the four of them accepted a Life Time Achievement award. That was a story that he should have filmed he thought, grimacing a little at his failure.

He stepped out of the closet and proceeded to the bed. He had been sleeping in the dying room for the last few weeks.

Freddie lay down on his side of the bed. He couldn't even imagine going over onto her side, violating her territory. "You comin' over here lookin' for a little slice of pie, old man?" she would ask. He smiled, seeing her there just for an instant, not young and golden, not withered and eaten away, but real, and human, her smile making suggestions, her eyes expressing millions of messages.

He reached over the tight spread and the crisp sheets and dragged her pillow to him. He smelled it but there was no wonderful mixed aroma of apples and brown sugar and smoked meat, no Sam came rushing over him like a spray, her essence was gone from here.

She wasn't in the bedroom.

Where was she now? It used to be easy to find her.

"Leonard?" he said.

"Online sir."

"Location of Mrs. Benson?"

"Mrs. Benson is not currently on the GPS grid sir."

"Ring Mrs. Benson's phone."

"Records indicate Mrs. Benson is deceased, sir. Should I begin an archive process?"

He closed his eyes, "No, not yet," vaguely his mind registered ways to improve the routines of Leonard's programs, but those thoughts dispersed like fog in the morning sun.

Freddie got up, his hips and knees aching, his quadriceps knotted, he headed back downstairs in a kind of side-to-side motion. He was looking for his Sam.

He retraced his steps, ventured throughout the entire house, but she was simply not there anymore. Eventually he reached the dying room as he knew he would. The overhead lights came on at his arrival, but preset for a low, subtle glow in case Sam had been resting. Nothing had changed. All the equipment was still there; there had been no time to coordinate its return. The orthopedic bed, the medical technology, the room looked like he was going to launch a space mission. He stared at the electronics. He had made his life, their lives, with software; his contributions to the middle quarter of the 21st century were probably footnotes in some in-depth history of advancement. The technology in the dying room made her comfortable and measured in detail her slow passing. Did it give her any extra time? He doubted it. In his life he had never really overvalued technology as some nerds do. Sam had taught him what was most important.

"Sam?" he said into the subtle lighting of the expansive space,

"Mrs. Benson is not available on premises for the intercom, sir," the house advised. "Mrs. Benson is deceased."

Freddie continued, oblivious to the facts. "I never planned for this, I mean, I have all the papers in order, all the documents to sign, but those are the details Sam, I'm ready for the details, but not, not, you being gone."

"Should I record, video capture or take dictation?" The room asked. Outside, distantly someone was playing with fireworks. The air thrummed.

"I know we talked a lot before, before you… left. I know you're rolling your eyes now. But I didn't know that it would be like this. I couldn't picture it. I wasn't ready, Sam, not really."

"I did not hear your answer, sir. Defaulting to all modes."

Freddie stared at the empty bed where she spent her last minutes. "We've been together most of my life, Sam. I know you didn't choose to leave, but before, anytime you weren't here, I knew that you were on your way, maybe minutes away, maybe a day or two, but you were always coming home.

"Not tonight. Not anymore. Now it's just me."

"You're dead Sam."

And the words lightly bounced off the beautifully coordinated walls and came back to him. Freddie shook as his thoughts merged into a new reality. His life was over but he was still alive: he was the walking dead.

He looked over at a huge picture on the wall, "Leonard, slideshow," he said and the giant framed photo began to progress from one image to another. Some were flat, taken of them as kids. Some were three dimensional.

"Leonard, video."

"The collection is substantial, sir. Preference?"

"Shuffle on Sam," he replied.

The stream began. Old iCarly webisodes, rehearsals, their wedding, he dug deeper on the wedding video, watching Sam dancing. Sam was a great dancer. Not that hair swinging thing she did, but actually dancing, twirling, head down, hands up high, seductive, celebratory, the most beautiful bride that ever lived. He exited out of the wedding file and dipped into her walking with Wayne taking his first steps, Sam and Carly jumping around in leotards, the super bra skit, then the show from Troubled Waters:

"Hey! It's me, Freddie. So, uh, a lotta people have been talkin' bout whether Sam and I should, y'know, go out with each other. And it's like everyone's wondering whether Sam is crazy for wanting to. But nobody asked me how I feel."

"We talked about it," she said. So alive, so beautiful, he still felt her loveliness in his ancient hips.

"No, you talked. You told me how you feel while you ate a quesadilla," he rejoined so long ago.

"The quesadillas here are amazing," she said to the camera. He ached to see her alive again, to touch her. He loved to touch her. To be touched by her, to feel her hands on his skin. Skin on skin with Sam.

"Anyway, yeah, it's important how Sam feels, but how I feel is important too."

"Okay Benson we get it, you want to humiliate me on the web in front of millions of people, go ahead and just do it, I don't care, get back with me for all the mean things I've sa…"

"Leonard freeze," and the video halts on the image of them kissing so long ago.

"Full display, 3-D Max."

"Rendering," the house replied, and then the two of them were there, eternally young, vaguely flickering as the entertainment center programs enhanced the full display that came alive in the room like a play put on by phantoms. He pressed his hand into the display of her golden hair and the images trembled and blinked with his intrusion.

He studied this kiss of the lovely young woman who was so much deeper in his heart than he could possibly know. He remembered that kiss, the one where he made the move, the one where he was so afraid. But that wasn't the beginning. The kiss that started it all was not captured for playback. That kiss lived on only in his mind.

He remembered it, or thought he did, but he knew that things change, that the mind altered details, making striped shirts solid, and water bottles more full than they really were. He was making some speech, telling her to take a chance. He was telling her because he cared about her and wanted the best for her. And then she did the Most Incredible Thing Ever.

She put aside their crazy game of abuse; she stepped forward with her typical Sam has-no-concern-for- the-consequences and kissed him. Even now his heart pounded at the thought of it. He wished he could play it back from his terabytes of digital storage, but he had to rely on his ape's brain.

"Princess, thank you for kissing me that night of the lock-in," he said to the room.

He sat down on the bed where she died. The sheets were rumpled and he smelled a hint of spicy mustard. His eyes burned, the release was closer now, alone in this place.

He buried his head in the pillow and found the smoky smell of her, not strong, rather a whisper, a rumor, a bacon trace, fading away into nothing. Just like her. Like them. No more Seddie, that space filled by something else.

Because that's what death really was he realized, the space you care about is filled with something else.

"You win Sam," his voice cracked, "mama always wins." And the tears tumbled down his face wetly, like a Biblical rain they fell, rushing down as his body was racked with sobs that vomited up from the very core of him. The cry came out, an animal sound, something as old as life itself, a noise from before men walked upright.

The house was silent, outside more fireworks popped and cracked.

The tears finally came but they offered no relief. Instead they uncapped the final black vial of misery and he peered into it, his tear soaked eyes wide open staring into the final part of his life. Freddie Benson was done, the sun had set on the defining relationship of his life. He was alone, surrounded by memories of their life together. Most of his destiny had been fulfilled. His special purpose for his time had been realized and was now concluded. He was not mourning the things they had not done, he was mourning the loss of a unique relationship, a precious connection that he needed. What they had once was gone and never coming back. There was only the next day and the day after that-a dwindling set of tomorrows.

Alone.

As he sobbed in that space so much darker than just unlit, he collapsed into sleep, as he did so the house sensed his reduced breathing and heart rate and dimmed the lights and silenced the phones.

Her death was the meanest trick she had ever played on him.

**A/N In chapter three the return of Sam. WTF?**


	3. A Better Place to Be

**Thanks for the alerts, follows and favorites. Special mention to reviewers:**

**invincible-soul, Pigwiz, Lackadaisical Pajamas, Moviepal, jhuikmn08, afanoffanfic, Kim Kardashian Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (yes, it was very awkward).**

**Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns iCarly, but more importantly he created it, and those characters drive viewers to create their own textual connections back into the show. Is that cool or what?**

**iConclude**

**Chapter III: A Better Place to Be**

"**Even when you´re gone, somehow you come along."**

**-Uncle Kraker.**

"Sam?" he said, looking over. Her blonde hair was illuminated in the burning noonday sun, her tresses seemed to glow as if charged with electricity. She was eating some kind of ham wrap roll-thing. Even stuffing her face she was gorgeous, an orange southwestern sauce jetted out onto her cheek as she bit down.

"Fredicus," she said, her words muffled by her eating.

"What are we going to do today?" he asked.

"We aren't staying here, that's for sure."

He looked around the elegantly maintained grounds, the perfect, lush grass, the landscaped flowers, the black wrought iron fence, the perfectly placed fresh cedar mulch. The pulsing sun had already dried the sprinkler watering from the morning. It was going to get hot today. The breeze rustled the tree leaves that shaded them and carried the fragrance of the irises and honey. Where was the honey coming from?

"I don't think John will let us leave," he advised her.

"Screw John."

He understood that. John was authority. Nice, amenable live-in authority and health care, but authority. Sam once refused to correctly answer a border guard's questions rather than submit to authority. There was no sense riling her up, so he decided to change the subject, "Remember how the boys would climb the fence?" He leveled his hand at the elaborate play set to their left. "We install this thing with ropes and slides, ladders and tunnels and both boys would just try to get over the fence."

"The next generation loves the play set," Sam said, and it was true, their grandchildren loved to come over and crash and kick on the equipment. The ham wrap was gone, she was lowering a strip of bacon into her mouth. It reminded him of some apex predator consuming its kill. He smiled. He could not share that image with her. She hated to have her eating "style" commented on by him.

"How's the bacon?" he asked.

"Not enough, that's how. As she swallowed another strip she said, "Today, we're taking the car and going out, just you and me."

He felt a surge of joyous anticipation salted with fear, "Sam, I don't have a license anymore."

"Yeah, like that would stop me," she licked the grease on her fingers. "I'm in love, Benson, did you know that?"

"I love you too," he said, his milky chocolate eyes taking in every inch of her.

"I meant the bacon, nub. You aren't hard on the eyes for a fossil, though. Anyway, the keys will be in the ignition."

"His car still uses keys?" Freddie said, mildly shocked.

"Yeah, he's old school broke. You need to talk to Parker about paying him more. Anyway, you and me are gonna go out, try that new Fat Shack Drive-in place. The car hops wear real tight shorts."

"Why would you care if the girls wear tight shirts? I know you aren't interested in my happiness."

"I said, 'shorts' old man and the car hops aren't girls, Fat Shack is going after the lady market, Fredrag."

He shifted his weight on the big pad of the outdoor chair, it was going to be hard to get up, "That's stupid, women aren't going to eat at a place called Fat Shack."

"Bet me."

"I'm not going to bet you."

"You are such a lady part."

"Sam…"

"Hairy taco."

"Sam!"

"Hatchet wound."

"Sam!"

"Hey, Mr. B." said the gaunt young man coming out from the big patio doors, "You talkin' to the missus?"

"Yes," he replied. "She is so foul, some days…" Freddie looked over where Sam had been. She was gone but the bacon smell lingered.

John, the young nurse that rotated here with him was good company. The man knew more about movies than Freddie which Sam found to be remarkable. The two men would often watch movies on the titanic wall display in the basement home theatre. Both loved Galaxy Wars, although John defended the remastered "enhanced" versions with more passion than sense. He was young. He believed in whatever the corporate engines pushed out there to rake the pockets. Freddie was too old to be fooled by the money machine. But be remembered the dumb things he and Spencer and Gibby had done in the name of Galaxy Wars, buying star fighters and hand weapons for outrageous sums. He missed those two. He knew he should call them but he and Sam were always so busy.

"What's she say?" John asked, handing Freddie a small cup of pills.

"I don't care to repeat it," Freddie said as he palmed the pills. They made him feel slow and doughy. He'd need to be sharp if he was going driving with Sam. He wasn't about to lose any arguments with her because he was medicated. He was going to lose like he always did, by being himself. He faked popping the pills into his mouth. Freddie Benson was lying about taking his medication. Distantly, the urn with his mother's ashes rattled on the shelf. "That Gutter Girl did this," he heard her say.

The words made him smile. Sam had changed him.

John poured some water into a crystal goblet with silver age super hero versions in action on the sides, "Laugh out loud, my Tam gets my jets goin' some days. I love her, but it's nice bein' here at work and getting' some guy time. Hey, the crew from Sam's on Quartermain want the two of us to come by for lunch. You game for today?"

Freddie looked through the glass wall of the goblet, how the moving water made the S on Superman's chest swell and warp, the artist was Curt Swan, the greatest Superman artist ever. Freddie prided himself that his mind was still sharp, "No, Sam and I have lunch plans," he said, he did not explain that Sam was planning on stealing John's car. If he ratted her out he would never hear the end of it. Freddie knew he would end up driving too. It was part of Sam's never ending make-a-man-out-of-Ms. Freddie program.

"Well, I'm going to the bathroom," Freddie said his tone suggesting he was leaving on a world tour. He pushed himself up slowly but surely. Yes, it was every bit as hard as he knew it would be. John stepped over to help, but Freddie waved him back. His knees and ankles ached as the blood began to fill his extremities again. He waited for his limbs' approval before walking.

"You need me to come along boss?" John asked.

"No, I'm feeling adventurous today. Besides, Leonard can alert you if I face plant."

"K. Mr. B." I'm gonna be in the lower kitchen. You get hungry after your lunch with the missus I'll have some stuff sitting out."

It took longer than he liked to get into the house and headed upstairs. This place was so big. Both boys had urged him to move into something smaller. Money was not an issue. But he and Sam built this house, raised children, fought (a LOT), made up (even more) here, they had danced on the wrap around deck they called "the fire escape." He turned those thoughts off, or maybe they stopped because of something else. Sam was waiting and Sam hated waiting on his old bones. How was it she was so young and supple? As he reached the main floor of the house Freddie hoped Sam was right about John leaving the keys in the ignition.

He walked into the bathroom and stood before the toilet boil.

"Drop the pills in the toilet Fredstone, they might find 'em in the trash," Sam said, standing suddenly to his right.

He did as she advised then fumbled with his zipper, "May I have some privacy, please?" he asked.

She made a dismissive eye roll and smacked her lips, "Aww, do you need some 'quality time' with Freddie Junior? Holy chiz Fredipus, I'm gonna be as old as you by the time we get out of here." He sighed at her belittling tone, and dropped the palmed pills into the toilet. He bounced them around with a stream of yellow pee that came out after a long wait.

He flushed and as he washed his hands he said aloud, "Leonard, master code: Archimedes/Aruthor,"

"Root access granted," the house responded, "You are now Superuser."

"GPS tracking will indicate I am in the main floor bathroom. All vitals nominal."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"Silence front door chime as I exit."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"Erase logs of this transaction."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"Don't wait up."

"Acknowledged, sir."

Freddie made his way out the silenced front doors and walked on slightly gnarled legs across the bright, hot cement in the big circular drive toward John's car. It was old, but then so was Freddie. It looked like John kept it in good shape. Vaguely he remembered John saying he had bought it from an old woman who kept it in her garage and never drove anywhere. Crazy. So many old people just slip their gears.

Sam was waiting in John's car in the passenger seat. As he suspected, he would have to drive.

Getting in he leaned shakily across the seat for a kiss, "Y'know this is a really bad idea, Sam. We could just have John fix us lunch…"

"Mama wants Fat Shack!" she declared and he imagined her holding some sword about to charge into battle. He sat back as their kiss concluded. She was so young and alive. Seeing her was something that happened in his eyes but the sensation was electrical and traveled below to his hips, one of which was not plastic.

He let out a sigh. She was very predictable in an unpredictable way. She was right about the keys. They were in the ignition. Sam was always a good thief. She re-conned her jobs smartly. John's car was not as nice as any of his, none of which he was allowed to drive anymore. He should think about getting John a better car. He hoped he did not wreck John's. He hoped he didn't hurt anyone. Sam could be so dangerous some days.

"You're scared about stealing a car, aren't you?" she said. He knew the expression on her face without looking.

"I've driven a stolen car with you before. Remember how we went to get Gibby that night after Nora's?" he replied.

"That was Spencer's car and you burrowed it without permission. That isn't stealing." He looked at her blonde hair, the sweep of her eyelashes. He stared for a moment at her cleavage. When he was young he would sneak glances down girls' shirts and now, an old, old man he was lusting after the firm, rounded breasts of his wife. He felt alive.

"Benson, you checkin' out Mama's rack?"

"Yep."

"Dream-on old man," she said, looking straight into his eyes. That look meant she was interested but food would come before either of them would.

He started the car. The thing was loud, needing a muffler. He hoped that John didn't hear them, but he could not show fear to Sam. This thing actually still ran on just gasoline. Was that legal? He remembered the cars he and Sam drove early on. There was one, a cancered-out Honda Accord that Sam called, "The Turd Hearse," that was just as loud as this thing of John's and the doors had a hard time closing because the frame was bent. His mother had wanted to buy him a better car, but Sam told him not to do it. She told him he needed to drive a poor man's car, and he never asked why, but it was another of those things she brought to his life that made it better somehow.

"You know, I didn't have a license when we stole Spencer's car," he said, insisting he could live on the wild side.

"Yeah, it was like dating a Columbian drug lord, I'm soaked thinking about it," she said, her sarcasm biting him in a way that he dearly loved, maybe even needed.

They rolled down the long drive to the street, his previous command to Leonard would overwrite any biometric alerts as his vitals left the home network and ventured out into the cloud. So long as they were back before dark he wouldn't have any problems seeing. Plus, when it got dark he… well, it had an impact.

"Put it on the The Rayzor! I wanna rock!" she said whooping and pointing at the radio.

"Sam, I really have enjoyed listening to Breeze 98. It's very soothing…"

"UUUUUGGGGGH!" she moaned. "God Benson! When did you get old!? It's like riding down the street with an actual paper book!"

They compromised on an oldies channel, then when One Direction came on:

"_You're insecure, don't know what for, you're turnin' heads when you walk through the door..._"

Freddie tensed ready for her to start some chiz.

Which arrived like a well-run bus, exactly on time as she said, "Oh Freddie, did I ever tell you everything that happened that time in the elevator with Zayn..."

"Sam..."

"It was 'inzayn'" she said dreamily, stealing a glance over at him to enjoy his reaction.

He knew nothing had happened with the singer, she had told him that but stirring Freddie up was something Sam delighted in. He knew she loved to watch the steam curl off him. He should be smarter than this. Part of it was an act, a game they played, really. She would be outrageous, he would be outraged.

"Freddie, he made me feel like a woman…"

"Sam, we agreed this topic is off limits," he said, but he heard the real tension in his voice. She really knew how to light him up.

"I know, but he said to me with that cute accent, "Puckett? That rhymes with suck…"

"SAM!" he slammed on the brakes and the car gave a squawl. As it halted the smell of burnt rubber filled the air.

She was laughing loud, a girlish noise that sounded like whole schoolyards of playing children, "Oh ho ho, zis feeb he makes ze lady laugh," her voice coming out with a bawdy French accent. He looked over at her. Her face was shining,

She had won.

Again.

Mama always wins.

And he loved it. They were seventeen, driving somewhere, together, the Way It Was Supposed to Be.

Behind, a horn honked, then another. The computers from the cars behind him were pinging his to move ahead if there was no serious issue preventing them. The computer in John's car was horribly out of date, Freddie noted. He had to buy John a new car when he got back. Of course if it had been newer, his lack of a license would have stopped it from going into gear. But he was pretty sure he could hack that. He should probably give John one of his cars, it would be easier to backdoor his own systems. Freddie was always a planner but associating with Sam had actually promoted him to the rank of schemer. Palming his pills, flushing them, planning future escapes, how he loved what she had done to him.

Sam flipped off the car behind them as Freddie began accelerating ahead. He did not admonish her for the gesture. He had learned to pick his battles over the years. In their time together parts of her joined to him, melded with whatever made up his character. He had become bolder, more creative. She had become more thoughtful, less wild. Well, a little maybe. He became more "abnormal" she became more "normal."

"Let's go dancing tonight," she said, I'll shake and strut and you can do your hitchhiker move," she then did a side to side shifting while jerking her thumbs toward the back as if thumbing for a ride. She formed a pronounced overbite on her lip.

"I do not make a face like that when I dance," he stated. He knew for a fact that the thumbs thing was him.

She just smiled and continued to mock his signature dance move. When she did it, it looked good, even sitting in a car. He was in awe of her natural talent. They had started out as enemies, then frenemies, opponents, they had dated in a weird, awkward way, broke-up, found friendship. As a boy the idea of dating Sam made him choke. As a man he marveled at the wisdom and kindness of God to let them have lives together. As a boy he was all about mind, intellect. Man's mind is so small, so limited he now knew.

He and Sam hadn't been driving in a while. Not since that time he drove into the fruit stand and Parker and Wayne explained to him that he could not drive anymore. That had hurt. At least he wasn't soiling himself. That would be too much.

He pulled into a stall at Fat Shack. He rolled down the windows and hot air blew in with the smell of fried meat and greasy fries. It was hard to see the menu, but like he really needed to? He knew what she was having: Fries, the Ham stacker extra loaded and a Fat Shake with a Fat Cake "Bloater" (extra filling) for dessert. He ordered off the senior menu.

"Do you remember how you stored fries in your bra?" he asked her.

"Yeah, kind of the perfect arrangement," she said dreamily, "food for me, tits for you."

"I wasn't into you when you did that," he said.

"But you were into tits."

"Well, yeah, I was a guy."

"So what are you now?" she asked.

He smiled at the jab. He knew it was coming the moment he set her up. "I really thought you hated me when we were younger," he added.

"You made me feel things I didn't understand, Nub. You showed me, I dunno, that guys aren't all creeps trying to score my va jay jay. You made me mad and I wanted you to pay attention."

The discussion was interrupted by the skating waiter dressed in what Sam called a "mankini" his shirt tied in a knot exposing impressive abs, while his ultra-shorts rode up allowing his muscular butt cheeks to bulge out in white crescents like uncooked dough.

"Benson, gay guys and chicks are gonna make this place a fortune."

He sighed, she was right again. It was why she could outsell him at the Pear store, why her shops were so successful. She understood marketing in ways that he never, ever could. When he made videos she was the one that thought of how to promote them. He thought people would just gravitate to something well made. Oh, how she laughed at that. That was a HUGE fight followed by volcanic make-up sex that raised the bedroom bar.

They burst up from deep inside, the memories of naked, slick, imperfect flesh on flesh action with her. Gasping, clutching, begging, bodies back and forth. Something stirred under his belly, some ancient force that dragged humanity up from the ocean and often threatened to drag it back down.

"Sir?" the voice cut into his hot, quivering memory.

"HUH?" Freddie said, crashing back down to reality.

Mankini dude put the tray on the driver's side, "Here you go. Wow, you must be hungry, or are you taking some of this back?"

Freddie charged the meal over his phone, "No, we'll eat it here," he explained, and the man gave Freddie an odd look, scoping out the interior of the car before skating off.

"Benson, check out that butt. You could bounce a quarter off that thing."

Freddie rolled his eyes and passed the food over to her.

"How come we never made a video of us doing the nasty?" she asked with the same voice that asked for a Shack Sauce packet.

He halted, remembering the video of her and James Ryan. Freddie had worked so hard to hunt down and suppress that, but he ignored that thought, "I did," he said with his smirk. He wondered what his smirk looked like on his face. He lowered the driver's visor but John's car didn't have a mirror there. He started to check his smirk in the rearview mirror when Sam exclaimed.

"Getouattahere, Marissa's baby saint wouldn't do such a thing."

"No, but I would," and his white, badly in need of trimming eyebrows did a hairy dance.

"You had Leonard record us…" she said, unsure of how to react.

"Uh huh," he took a bite of his senior burger. What made it senior? Was it just old? It was great having all his teeth still. Thank heaven his mother had him practice good oral hygiene.

"Ooooh, you are a dirty, dirty, Nub. When can we watch it?" she asked, her voice low and heated. She wasn't upset about the sex recording. He thought he had told her about it before, he seemed to remember watching it with her, too. How could she not remember that?

A greasy breeze blew in the open window filling his senses with her, when they were little kids someone asked him, "is Sam Puckett your friend?" and he answered "no, she squeezes me," because of the various grips and holds she would apply to him. The remarkably clear memory made him smile. How far, they had come, the incredible distance they had covered together.

"Oh my God! Check out that porker beside us," she said.

"Sam, the windows are down, he can hear you."

"Who cares? Look at him eating his fingernails, that's gross! What if he just scratched his butt crack with that hand?" Sam stared out the window at the man.

Sam never respected people just on general principle but she seemed to really have it in for the guy in the next car. Freddie thrust his head back against the head rest, "Sam, could you please not comment on the customers?" But Freddie loved that she commented on the customers. Years ago when they were just bored frenemies and could not decide on what to do ("What do you want to do?" I don't know, what do you want to do?") they went to Super Mart just to walk the aisles and be astounded first hand at the strange inhabitants shopping there. Sam said their slogan should be, "Like shopping at a Martian circus."

"Ahhh! He just ate his own booger! Hey!" She shouted at the man who was now looking over, a confused look on his face.

"Sam!"

"Hey fatback! This is a restaurant you can order food here, don't eat your own snot!" Was the man saying something back? His lips were moving.

Freddie cringed, then gave himself over to it. He looked over at her, blonde and beautiful, sexy, and fiery. He really was the luckiest man on the planet. He sat there for a while just watching her. He couldn't really hear her either, it was like watching a show with the sound off. He loved her so much he felt like he was overflowing with it.

"Sam?" he said to her, "Thanks for kissing me that night at the lock-in."

Freddie was aware that his door had opened, he turned expecting to see mankini dude with more food, what he saw was the man Sam had yelled at, large and round, like a collection of various balls wearing a wife beater. With course black hairs bristling out it looked as if someone had tried to a put a shirt on a large bush made of human hair.

"Sam?" Freddie said as the man yanked him out of the seat. Freddie smelled old sweat and liquor and tobacco. When he was younger, throwing men out of bars during the break-up he called the Apuckettlypse, he would have fought back, but that was long ago. He was stiff, out of shape, he was old. He didn't really feel the first punch, he just said, "Sam? A little help here," he hated asking Sam for help, but he knew when he needed it. He was proud, not stupid.

Freddie was more aware of the second punch, vaguely, distantly, he knew he was in trouble, but he had complete faith in his Sam.

**A/N **

**Hmmm, not lookin' good for the Fred man. I don't think I've done a cliffhanger before. Coming up in chapter four, a few moments with a very angry Wayne Jathan Benson.**

**Like all my stories, this happens in the Knightroverse. The stolen car ride, Freddie as bouncer, the Apuckettlypse all appear at greater length in other stories I've written. **

**There is something called _Sam and Cat_ coming to Nick. It's a Schneider's Bakery/Danwarp show. Not sure what it means for canon and Seddie but I'm pretty sure of one thing from my time in FF. Something called, "Sat" is on the way with lots of hot girl-on-girl action. There are things you can believe in even in these troubled times. **


End file.
